Seen the dancing old ladies (and sometimes men) in the evening? And perhaps early morning? Of course you have. And that’s the problem. They’re everywhere. But most worrying of all, some have even taken to our city’s roads to practice what they call their “spiritual life”.
In Chinese, they are referred to as the “Square Dancing Aunties” (广场舞大妈). A phenomenon which has attracted worldwide attention, both good and bad, the square-dance trend has become exacerbated recently, in part, on account of China’s ageing population.
Now though, the aunties have become a hot search for their “taking over the road” (占道), for lack of anywhere else to dance.
30 something, Ms. Wang, lives in a residential community on Hebin Lu in Nanjing’s Jiangpu. Completed in 2021, the community has yet to have any public leisure and entertainment space nearby. Wang cannot handle it anymore. “For a while, I woke up every day to square-dance music; they started dancing around seven o’clock”, she said.
Wang told reporters that she could tolerate it on weekdays, but at the weekends when she wanted to sleep in, it was just too much.
As such, she and other dissatisfied tenants got together to negotiate with the dancers, managing to achieve an outcome acceptable to both parties.
Therein, square-dancing time has become accepted by both sides to be 09:00-21:00.
“Square dance is our spiritual life”, said Ms. Huang, who has been square dancing for more than 10 years. “We are used to doing it every day, but we also recognise that we should try not to disturb others.” She went on to tell reporters that every year her dance gang has disputes with others on account of their habit.
A Ms. Chen complained about this very topic to reporters from the Yangtze Evening News. “When the weather is bad, they move from the square to the underground car park’s thoroughfares, dancing in the middle of the road, she said. “We have to be so careful when driving in the underground garage.”
“[They do] collectively concede when cars come along, but even so, it is still very dangerous. I reported it to the property management, but nothing was done”.
One residential community in Jiangning, however, has come up with an innovative way of addressing the issue. In Yongfuyuan Community, there are a large number of elderly people, a floating population and the problem of car parks being occupied by square dancers.
Sun Yan, who is with the community’s property management office, explained that to fundamentally solve the problem, they did not directly stop it. Instead, they asked team members and volunteers to infiltrate the square dancers and become emotionally accepted, after which they proposed to the group that it would be more appropriate to dance in the square set aside for such activities. The subversion has worked too.
Sun said, “Dancing in the parking lot not only affects other people’s driving and parking, but also the mood and effectiveness of dancing if they don’t stop to give way to vehicles”.
